


Smiling teeth are bone

by Icie



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Fantasy setting, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 13:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12212097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icie/pseuds/Icie
Summary: A knight enters a castle intent on killing a dragon.





	Smiling teeth are bone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sapphire2309](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/gifts).



Night hears the dragon as soon as she steps over the threshold of the castle. She'd heard dragons are creatures with strong magic, but this is a bit much.

"Ooooooh~" says a voice without a body. It feels like it originates inside Night's ear. "So _you're_ the one who's going to kill me? I'm so excited to meet you!" The crumbling wall Night entered through rumbles, and though she lunges in an attempt at blocking it, the rubble surrounding the hole knits together until it's as smooth as if it had been sanded. Night pounds on it anyway. Dragons play tricks, and the tales are very clear about their magic including illusions.

All it does is make her fist hurt with a dull ache.

She shakes out her fingers, and the voice of the dragon returns. "Really, trying to leave so soon? What kind of a host would I be if I allowed that?" The dragon laughs. "Besides! You have a job to do. Don't you? And such an important one. I've heard I'm a real bother."

The dragon spread plague and famine to the area around the castle. Spreads. No one has dared live within sight of its castle since the crops stopped growing and people started dying, coughing up black pieces of themselves.

"I will kill you," Night says.

The dragon laughs again, but doesn't offer further insight, its voice fades out and Night is left alone to puzzle her way through the castle.

The castle is built like a maze, and Night expects to have to search every inch to find the dragon. She has a few thoughts on where to check — the throne room, for one — but the first door she pushes open elaborate enough to lead towards those possibilities belongs to a library. She frowns at the hundreds of books lining the walls. When she touches the spine of one at random, it crumbles, and she's left with a pinch of dust between her fingertips.

"Such a pity. That one was interesting — have you ever been to the North? It's beautiful. The sky has lights like it's burning." 

The dragon continues to wax poetic about the content of the book as Night runs her finger over the rest of the shelf. Each volume crumbles under the pressure. The castle has been empty for a century, but looking up at the books, and seeing the places where they have already fallen into dust, it feels as if they must have been unread for much longer. 

There's nothing living here, she realises, and her skin crawls. There's no spiders or traces of mice, and she would bet her sword that the dragon and her are the only things breathing within ten miles.

She makes for the exit on the other side of the library.

"You _do_ know you're lost, don't you?"

Night purses her lips.

"Would you like a hint?" the dragon asks. Night imagines its scaled lips laughing and its eyes dancing. She doesn't reply. "Too bad! I'm bored so you're getting one. You could at least _try_ to be more fun." Night is starting to wonder whether the dragon's personality is the real poison. "There are dungeons under the south side. You should be able to work it out from there. Buuuttt..." the dragon draws out. A flame bursts from between Night's feet, and shoots off through a small door to the right. It leaves a scorched trail in the dust behind it. "In case you're even more stupid than you look." 

The presence of the dragon leaves. Night kicks at the guiding line, but it seems to have been burnt into the stone floor, and her boot doesn't make it waver.

With no better path to follow, she takes the Dragon's advice and follows the trail. It takes her through servant's corridors and abandoned bedrooms. There is plenty of value still in place, but whenever Night disturbs any of it with so much as a breath, it crumbles. Even metal whithers and fades, she discovers when she attempts to pull an ornamental sword from its perch.

"You don't seem impressed with my humble quarters," the dragon comments, amused.

"You live with death," Night replies.

The dragon says nothing. Night has no way of knowing whether she's been heard.

She comes to a solemn set of stairs leading down into the earth. There's no rail to grip, and she treads carefully to avoid slipping on the stone where it's been worn down in the centre of each step.

A buzzing rises in Night's mind from a hum she hadn't realised she was hearing. She thinks it might be the dragon's excitement, and her sweat turns clammy under her clothes.

The dungeons are gigantic. The stairs open to a cavern that seems as vast as the castle above.

"Come on, come _on!_ You're nearly here!"

It's only after Night descends to the bottom of the dark pit of the dungeon that she realises she should have thought to wonder why the dragon didn't come to her.

But as she touches the floor the dragon lies on, it dawns on her that not thinking of that, may have been a dreadful mistake.

The dragon's bones are bright in the gloom. Night didn't think to wonder about how she could see to make her way down here when no candles have been lit in the castle for a century.

She feels the dragon smile, and uncoil from its bones. It rushes her. It enters her.

"Ooooh, now this is more like it!" the dragon says with Night's mouth. It—

"She, actually. Come on, can't you tell I'm overflowing with femininity?"

Night swallows. And is surprised to find she can swallow. "You're a dragon," Night says.

The dragon hums. "Something like that, anyway," she says. "Shall we go?"

Night feels like she's talking to herself. She wants to ask _why_ , but despite what the dragon said before, she isn't stupid. She clearly needed Night to leave the bones. "If we leave, you're going to kill people," Night says. Though now she isn't so sure.

"Maybe," the dragon says, and then smiles with Night's mouth. "It depends how good I've got."

The dragon doesn't explain, but Night lets her move her body out of the castle. She was in those bones for more than one hundred years, the least Night can give her is a breath of fresh air and some sunlight.

As it turns out, when they exit the castle — the hole Night entered through back to being a hole — the sun has set.

"Do you have a horse?" the dragon asks.

Night shakes her head.

"Pity," she says, "you're hungry. We could have had a snack."

Night chooses not to reply. She thinks that might be the dragon's idea of a joke. Though she suspects she wouldn't think twice about turning that joke into a reality, if the need arose. Which is, of course, also part of the joke.

They walk in the darkness until it's midnight. Night's eyes find every hint of life they pass. All the animals are small — a moth, a centipede — but then she sees an owl. The dragon doesn't make a sound but Night can feel her happiness in the smile on her own face.

"I went to kill you," Night says.

"Still can. Still will!" says the dragon. She stretches with Night's arms. "We're just going to live a little first."

Night wonders whether she was living before this. Whether either of them were. She doesn't think she knows the answer.


End file.
